I’d always fancied a go at stand-up. That was until I saw a young comedian absolutely destroyed on stage at a comedy night in Greenwich, east London. A heckler tore this poor young fellow to pieces until the comic uttered a few expletives and ran off stage in tears. From that moment on my comedic ambitions were as mobile as a bag of lard.

“You might think that if you can tell a funny story in the pub and everyone laughs, you could be a stand-up,” the comedian/actor John Thomson says during a break in filming the next series of Cold Feet. “But, believe me, there is a lot more to it than that.”

Thomson has recently created and executive-produced Dying Laughing, a documentary featuring interviews from many of the globe’s most famous comedians, such as Billy Connolly, Jamie Foxx, Jo Brand, Eddie Izzard and Chris Rock.

‘You have to die onstage to get good. The more pain you experience on that stage the better you will get’John Thomson

Directed by Lloyd Stanton and Paul Toogood. It examines exactly what it takes to become a stand-up, looking at the breathtaking highs and excruciatingly painful lows alongside “the boring life bits in between”.

“When you sit around with other comedians, the anecdotes about their bad experiences on the road and onstage are often better than their set,” Thomson says.

“I did a student gig and it wasn’t going at all well. Then this big student walked onstage, snatched my beer out of my hand, stood in front of me and downed it in one. The crowd started shouting: ‘You are shit, you are shit, you are shit!’

“I died on my arse, didn’t get to finish my act, was booed off and, as it finished late, I had to sleep on the student common room floor while people were stepping over me going: ‘It’s you! You were shit last night.’ But you have to die onstage to get good. The more pain you experience on that stage the better you will get.”

‘It’s an incredible high. But in the three years I was doing it again, out of 40 gigs I had four that were really very special’

Certainly, it seems that every comedian has suffered. New Yorker Dave Attell admits on one occasion to shutting down, forgetting his whole act, babbling like a lunatic and wetting himself, while the Washington-born comedian Royale Watkins breaks down in tears even at the mention of a past bombing.

One wonders why they do it. But as much as they talk about their horrendous and humiliating experiences, they also emphasise the adrenaline highs that only an audience’s laughter can afford.

John Thomson: ‘You never know how it’s going to go. It’s like gambling’ Photo: ITV

“You never know how it’s going to go and I guess that’s part of the exhilaration,” Thomson says. “It’s like gambling. The first question I ask is: ‘Are they comedy savvy?’ Playing in an established comedy night in a comedy club is one thing but playing in the function room that no one uses above the Dog and Duck in Barnsley is another kettle of fish. You have people coming up saying: ‘Ee lass shall we give this comedy a go?’

“When it works it’s magic. If you have the audience in the palm of your hand you can relax a bit, play around and go off piste.

‘I think you’d be very rare to find a good comedian who doesn’t feel disenfranchised from something. We are the odd people and that is how we fit in by showing our oddness’Victoria Wood

“I played in Stockton-on-Tees recently and it was electric. It’s an incredible high. If they were all like that I’d be out there tonight but in the three years I was doing it again, out of 40 gigs I had four that were really very special.”
“I would say though that you have be slightly unhinged to do it or, as Keenen Ivory Wayans says in the film, ‘slightly damaged’.

“A lot of comedians have had a tough time of it. They make light of a bad life and find a way of overcoming it. I think you’re more likely to find someone who is funny in Glasgow or is in prison than you would in Henley.”

Victoria Wood says in the film: “I think you’d be very rare to find a good comedian who doesn’t feel disenfranchised from something. We are the odd people and that is how we fit in by showing our oddness.”

And yet, no matter how oddball and barking they might appear, stand-ups certainly fill a big hole in society. They are the philosophers of today boldly going where few others have the gumption to go.

“Stand-up is a soapbox from where you can comment on and satirise the world,” says Thomson. “And the best comedy reveals something truthful about the human condition or society that you might not have thought about. They have this weird surreal take on things. And that’s what I like.

“Stand-ups look at the world in a different way. The other week Justin Moorhouse asked me if I’d ever played darts blindfolded. So I said of course not. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ he replied.

“Now what type of mind created that?”

Stand-ups in their own words: ‘They threw chairs at me’

Billy Connolly

I think it’s rather wonderful that at one end of society is this crowd of nutters who will talk about having sex with your mother, dying, assaulting clouds, venereal disease, cancer and politics.

Jerry Seinfeld

Comedy is purely a result of your ability to withstand self torture. That is where you get great comedy. Your ability to suffer and say that damn thing still doesn’t work. I’m going to write it again and if your willing to do that 85 times over the course of many, many years great jokes get written.

Jo Brand

I don’t look like a gorgeous model type so you get used to walking along the road and getting abuse from people out of cars and vans. But the thing about comedy is that they’re in front of you and you can fight back and I’d stared so much in me so I find having a go at them really most enjoyable.

Sarah Silverman

We want to please the audience and that is why we do stand-up, because of some f**ked-up need inside of you to have the approval of strangers.

Chris Rock

Anyone who thinks for a living is going to be sad. Ignorance is bliss. So what’s the opposite? You can’t be ignorant if you’re a comedian. You have to be aware and you can know too much but are we manic-depressives? Nah ! But we’re definitely not as happy as the average idiot.

Steve Coogan

I did the Tunnel club in London and they threw chairs at me… I use comedy to mitigate pain. People from dysfunctional backgrounds make better comics. I don’t know many well-adjusted spiritual people who are funny.

Frank Skinner

A really old lady walked up to the front of the stage once and said why ‘Why don’t you go away?’

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